David Garrick, photo, biography David Garrick Biography David Garrick (1717-1779) In 1685 Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes - Henry IV issued the act of toleration, equalizing the rights of the Huguenots (French Protestants) and Catholics. Now for trying to emigrate Huguenots relied death penalty. The latter, however, nobody was afraid of. He had only to give anyone a bribe and then should be - on all four sides. So he found himself in England, a rich French merchant, La Garrigue, who became a foreign land Garrick. His children's fate has developed differently. One settled in Portugal and became the largest wine merchant. Another remained in England, married an Irish and bought a commission. So Captain Garrick and vegetating in a provincial town, burdened with the offspring of six children, who, of course, the other a better future. At one of them, David, hopes were especially high. The boy was alive, which ran to knowledge, and his father sent him to his brother in Lisbon - God willing, he will make from the vintner. D. Zoffani.

David Garrick in the comedy 'My wife Provaka' 1763-1765 David and accurately in Lisbon succeeded, albeit in his. When my uncle going to the merchants, he amused them to fall. From the secrets of wine trade is, unfortunately, distracted, and a year later, the boy had to be sent home - to the merchants he obviously was not fit. Well, Captain Garrick hand on him did not wave. I decided to put on the academic part and gave them just to open a school of Samuel Johnson, the good money he took small - lived on the content-rich wife, a lot of his older. The scientists really had a remarkable. Subsequently, he became a leading British literary critic and author of the famous dictionary. Here are all my knowledge he did not manage to convey to David. His wife was terribly sick, he threw home, school and went on foot to London (travel money was not), taking only his favorite, David. My father once took care of him and arranged to one lawyer, who lived near the capital. That little later from the student refused. David no interest in law and not shown as he could, sitting in the London theater. But here, his luck did not leave.

He received from his uncle's small wine cellar just in front of Covent Garden - one of the two (the second was called Dryuri Lane) leading drama theater of the city, not far from another theater, Gudmens Fields. J. Reynolds. 'Garrick between tragedy and comedy Muses' 1747 Forthcoming Garrick became one of the most popular people in the London theater - actors felt in him the man. Hour test was already close. In 1740 ill-known London harlequin Yates, and Dzhiffard, director of the theater Gudmens Fields, who have often seen Garrick in their performances, asked him to speak instead of Yates. Garrick put on a mask of a harlequin, and played so that no one noticed the replacement. Season was over, and Dzhiffard Garrick took with him on summer tour. Fortunately, with him gone, Charles McLean, a few months before that rocked in the role of Shylock ( "The Merchant of Venice 'William Shakespeare). McLean was a character actor who transformed this traditionally comic image in a tragic.

Other major actors' achievements in McLean was not, but over time he became famous as a theater teacher. McLean managed to do away with the melodic recitation of which came from the classical theater actors. He forced his students to pronounce the most commonplace remarks tone, and then build on these intonation, adjust to the conditions of the scene. Garrick learned from Maclean long, but when his phenomenal abilities that was enough. In 1741 Dzhiffard gave him the role of Richard III, promised that he will be brought before the public as a 'gentleman, which first appeared on the stage'. It was a way to lure more people into the hall, but the way is dangerous. It happened that the audience did not like them to beat a novice. With Garrick, of course, nothing like that could befall. The very next day in a review reported that in London there is now a great actor. Since then, one success followed another. Not all, however, came easily. Special efforts required role of King Lear. Garrick was then 25 years old, and he had to play a man in years.

Eyelid image was given to him easily, and yet after six representations of the performance comes at a time to withdraw. Garrick began to prepare the role again. Not far from the theater was a man who once dropped out of the window his two-year old daughter and mad. The whole day was a normal person, but at a certain hour approached the window, filling the street with shrill cries, which once 'lost' grisly scene. Garrick was his frequent guest, which helped the actor perform the scene of madness in 'King Lear'. But this is not the main. Working on the role, Garrick opened a very important feature of his talent. He was in the course of the performance needed contrasting states. And in order to play well the tragic old man, he wrote for a scene, where he represented the comic boy. Then Garrick in the role of King Lear awaited triumph. He does say that it is impossible to perform well the tragic role, not being a full-fledged comic actor. Where else would take the famous garrikovskoy character? He always played the man rather than the position which he held. About the previous Executive role of King Lear said that it 'every inch - King'.

About Garrick - that it 'every inch - King Lear'. One of the great roles Garrick was Hamlet. Attendance has fascinated that scene, where Hamlet meets his father's shadow. German physicist and theater critic Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, . who at that time lived in London, . thus described it: 'Hamlet is walking on the left, . upstage, . and, . when it stops, . turning to the audience back, . Horatio suddenly exclaimed: 'He, . Lordship, . look! " - And shows the right hand, . where there is, . just petrified, . anyone hitherto unseen ghost, . At these words Garrick lightning turns and at the same moment rebounds in two or three steps back. His legs give way, his hat flies to the ground, both hands ... stretch, fingers spread out, open my mouth, in this position is he just dug in, supported by friends, who fear that it may fall. His face is so awful that the audience embraces fear, even before he utters a single word.

After a long pause, he accepted to talk, but not from the beginning of breath, and at its end, so that the words 'On the strength of heaven, protect us ...' tremble in the air. Ghost beckons him ... Garrick's eyes glued to the ghost. It is not a word corresponds to a Friend. Finally, when they persist for too long, he turns to face him, desperate effort to burst out of their hands ... snatches a sword from its sheath and directs it to them saying: 'I swear I will make in the spirit of the ...'. This is for them fairly, then it sends the sword to the ghost: 'Come, I'm for you' - and the ghost leaves. Garrick was still standing motionless with a naked sword, as if willing to be at a greater distance from the ghost, he slowly begins to follow him, pausing and then continuing on their way, before holding a naked sword. . His eyes still riveted to the ghost, his hair disheveled, breathing stops - so gradually he hides behind the scenes'. . This episode is based on differences of movement and stillness . Garrick has always maintained its system of contrast.

However, the initial scene was like a 'director's intro' to the whole image of Hamlet, who is indecisive, it is ready to act. But the description Lichtenberg interesting for another reason. Garrick magnetically acted on the audience. Their attention is so focused on it that nobody but him, they have simply not seen. Only in this way and could appear 'hitherto unseen ghost'. . But, of course, the strongest contrast actor Garrick nature manifested itself in its ability for one play brilliantly played and farcical and tragic role . His performances in the 'correct comedy' stand along with the famous tragic roles. He was a consummate Benedict in Shakespeare's 'Much Ado About Nothing', Abel Draggerom in 'The Alchemist' Ben Johnson and many other ro-Lyah. His work on the way Draggera he described in a small pamphlet, published anonymously. Dragger - tobacco merchant, who decided to receive medical treatment from quack doctor. He is committed to him such respect, . that quite faint in his presence and can not move either leg, . no hand, . but when he tries to turn, . touches the outstretched hand urilnik, .

breaks it and horrified - he's chosen physician cheap, . and urilnik is, . be, . God knows how much money, . And, explaining the status of his hero, Garrick says later, as should play: 'His eyes should be turned to the subject matter, which it occupies the most, and his lips stretched in the direction of the subject. This creates the impression of relaxation of every muscle. If the head bend in the direction of the vessel, it will give the upper part of his body is very clear expression of the comic horror and sty-da. To lower torso and was equally comic, you need feet toes turn inward, and hold breath. Abel will inevitably feel the trembling in my knees, and if at the same time his fingers tighten convulsively, it will create a complete picture of the grotesque horror, which, under a brush Dutch artist '. . This description prompted theorists Theater decide that Garrick was, as they said, 'bezemotsionalnym' actor . And in fact, he first analyzes the state of Abel, and then sets out the amount of tricks that express that state. This opinion Garrick still bou-Lee reinforced his speech at the British Embassy in Paris. He left the banquet hall, .

sticks his head between the two halves of the door, . and for four or five seconds on his face consistently changed expression: from the frantic joy - to the quiet, . from it - to remain calm, . of peace - to the amazement, . astonishment - to the surprise, . then - to grief, . to depression, . to the horror, . Finally, . disgust, . and then in reverse order - again to the mad joy., . Attending the luncheon Denis Diderot infer from this that Garrick - a veritable actor submission . Can a man's soul to possess this plasticity? Garrick, he said in his treatise 'The paradox of the actor', demonstrated his amazing ability to mimic - not more. With him, not all were willing to accept. And, above all, those who worked with Garrick. Among them was the greatest choreographer Jean Georges Nover, author of the famous "Letters of dance '(1760). He told us how desperately tormented Garrick before the premiere, 'implanted in the image'.

And on one performances of 'King Lear' in the scene where the aged father curses his daughters, Garrick became so ecstatic that tore off his gray wig and threw them behind the scenes - and finish the action. And he had short hair, black hair. So who was Garrick - 'actor representations' or 'actor experiences'? Neither one nor the other. He was "absolutely an actor '- one of the greatest in the world theater. The feeling engendered in its action, action - a sense. In general, he was in all respects 'man of the theater' - and the actor and playwright, and theater administrator, and director. . As a playwright he not only left a few comic scenes, but also interfered in the creative laboratory of William Shakespeare . XVIII century was not able to take this writer's full. Of his plays throwing the comic scenes (well, 'Hamlet' was not an episode from the grave-diggers), devised for his tragedies happy ending, fit in with their moralizing monologues. Alter the Shakespeare and Garrick. But he is closer than anyone else, kept Shakespeare's text. He is revered as one 'of the great bard'.

In his estate (and Garrick soon became one of the richest men in the English theater), he found a bust of Shakespeare, and that he returned the former glory of their native city of the famous playwright. The first Shakespeare Festival, which he organized in Stratford-upon-Avon, failed. There was bad weather, and the invitation from London to the public seized bugs. But Garrick, spending a lot of money, brought the city clean, and new festival marked the beginning of a long glorious tradition. Garrick acted Gudmens Fields briefly. After his success in the role of Richard III, he played in the comedy Buckingham 'rehearsal', which so successfully parodied the leading artists of London, that they have closed this theater. One season Garrick worked in Dublin, and then began to reign forever in the company Dryuri Lane. In 1743 he took the theater lease and remained its leader until 1776, when he sold his R.B. Sheridan. Hardly in England and throughout Europe was rumored that Garrick left the scene in London launched the invasion of spectators. And to everyone's surprise, he played his old role as if he had passed dozens of years. He still seemed full of energy.

Stay Garrick in Dryuri Lane was a whole epoch in the history of this theater. Friends said that communicate with Garrick was not easy. Nature of whimsy, not always possible to guess what expect from him. But once came down to it, it becomes solid and consistent. In his theater Garrick brought an order that called him 'the little tyrant'. And for a long time kept on him gratefully. He freed the stage from the audience, . gave scope for actors, . fought against the legacy of classical dominance words on the game, . Entered long, . one year, . rehearsal, . a lot of work with individual actors, . trying to convey to them all, . that he knew, . always taking into account the individual partners, . and so little by little to create an ensemble, . He cared about the typical makeup and costume history. For registration performances invited 'King decorators' Philip James Loterburga, when it became the scene covered ramp, but not chandeliers, as previously. In short, he made Dryuri Lane of the then most modern theaters. After Garrick Theater could not be as before. . -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ .

'I happened to see how he played the tyrant, who dies, goading the remorse and horror, the enormity of his crimes . The last act was entirely devoted to his remorse and sorrow. The man took the upper hand over the murderer and a Barbarian: heeding the voice of humanity, cursing the tyrant of his crimes, it is now gradually become a formidable judges, his executioners. With each moment of death all the more impressed on his face, . eyes fading, . all with great difficulty, he uttered the words, . his gestures, . without losing their expressive, . betrayed the approach of the last moments, . legs are weak, . features sharpened, . pale, . Deathly man expressed remorse and flour, . Finally he fell to the ground, and in that moment all the accomplishments of his crimes in horrific images rose before his mind's eye. Pursued by the terrible pictures of these atrocities, he tried to fight with death - the nature, it seemed, did it one last effort. This scene evoked awe, he zarapal nails ground, as if digging a grave for himself, rookovoe moment came nearer, we saw first hand the death.

He died - a suicide hiccups, distorted face, convulsive movements of the hands, convulsively heaving chest completing this awesome picture. " Photos of David Garrick David Garrick – Inspira Wiki Associated Dates: February 19, 1717 – Born David Garrick is one of the eminent spirits who appeared to President Wilford Woodruff in the St. George Temple on August 21, 1877. This interesting story is detailed in the Eminent Spirits Appear to Wilford Woodruff wiki. “David Garrick has gone down in history as perhaps the greatest English actor of his age. And excellent playwright his acting talents lay equally in tragedy and comedy. His performances of Shakespeare helped to revive the influence of this great master. In 1769, Garrick organized the first Shakespearean festival of Stratford-on-Avon.

Born in a time in which acting and actors were at the lowest point of social acceptability since the 1400s, Garrick lifted the progression to a new respectability.” 1 “Let others hail the rising sun, I bow to that whose race is ruin.” – David Garrick 1.8 Death Life Sketch from The Other Eminent Men of Wilford Woodruff Copyright © Taken from the book: The Other Eminent Men of Wilford Woodruff . Special thanks to Vicki Jo Anderson. Please do not copy. English Actor and Director 1717-1779 Early Life David Garrick was born in the rural town of Lichfield, England, the birthplace of Samuel Johnson , who was at one time his schoolmaster. Although these men were both born in poverty and obscurity, they were to become the most commanding personalities of the eighteenth century in the world of literature and drama. Garrick’s reputation was not limited to England. Garrick toured France just before his retirement, where he created an admiration for Shakespeare’s works that burst into the greatest awakening of the French to an appreciation for Shakespeare. Garrick’s fame still echoes in the literature of France.

It was perhaps in the creation of this bond between England and France that Garrick performed the work for which he was born. He is considered as one of those who did the most to dispel the clouds of prejudice which kept France and England separated. Ancestry Considering Garrick’s role in bringing France and England together, and it will perhaps seem no coincidence that the nationality of Garrick’s grandparents was French and the nationality of his birth was English. Garrick’s paternal grandparents were French Huguenots, who were driven to seek shelter in England after the repeal of the Edict of Nantes. The Edict of Nantes had granted religious freedom to Protestants in France in 1598, but it was revoked in 1685. Thousands fled France. The Garrick family (whose name at this time was De La Garrique) escaped to England from Bordeaux separately and with great difficulty. Eventually the family, including a brother and a sister was reunited. A fragment of a journal kept by his grandfather, also named David Garrick, lists the births and deaths of the family recognizing the hand of the Lord in all things. David Garrick To this first David Garrick was born Peter Garrick.

In 1707, Peter married Arabella Clough who was of Irish descent. This couple had ten children, seven of whom lived. David Garrick was their third child. Peter Garrick became a captain in the king’s army. His wife was greatly devoted to her husband. Personality Clever and bright, with an engaging personality, David was an observer of people. He often entertained his friends with his imitations. He did not find school much to his liking for he had a restless spirit. When Garrick was about ten years old, he watched a company of strolling players and decided to put on a play. The play he chose was ‘’The Recruiting Officer’’. The cast consisted of his friends and a little sister. It was not long after this that he received an invitation from his Uncle David, his namesake, to come and live with him in Portugal. Uncle David was a prosperous wine merchant and was willing to train young Garrick in the business. Garrick’s stay in Portugal seems to have been more a success in the social aspect of his life than in the comerical aspect.

He entertained the English community at their evening events with his imitations and his ability to give from memory long speeches and other acting tidbits. Samuel Johnson was to say to Fanny Burney that “off as well as on the Stage, [Garrick] is always an Actor.” This “education” of life abroad gave him in early glimpse of the world, and his interaction with people there was of invaluable training. However, his work with the ledgers did not prosper. Garrick was sent back home. Family “Father” Garrick’s father was unable to support his large family on his captain’s “half-pay,” so he volunteered for overseas duty. He was gone for five years. Because the eldest brother had also left for service, the responsibility of helping the family fell upon young David Garrick. He was fifteen years old. His mother’s health was poor and Garrick did all in his power to relieve the trials of his mother. When Garrick’s father returned home, his health, too, was so broken that he lived only a short time.

When Garrick’s uncle David died, leaving him £1,000, a family council was held and Garrick and his elder brother Peter decided to use Garrick’s inheritance to go into the wine business, of which Garrick had some knowledge. Garrick was to warehouse the products in London and Peter would retail them in Litchfield. Drury Lane When Garrick left for London he carried with him a letter of introduction from Gilbert Walmesley, the Registrar of Diocese, who had a keen interest in the bright young lad. He wrote of Garrick: “as ingenious and promising a young man as ever I knew in my life,” who “has been much with me, ever since he was a child, almost every day; and I have taken great pleasure often in instructing him, and have a great affection and esteem for him.” (However, because of the death of his father, Garrick’s educational experience had lasted less than a year.) Garrick’s place of business was close to Convent Gardens theater. He attended all the plays that he could and became a friend with actors, stagehands, and directors.

One of the leading actors who became a friend of Garrick’s said: “The stage possessed him wholly; he could talk or think of nothing but the theater.” Garrick submitted to the theater of Drury Lane a farce he had written and it was accepted. An Actor One night at Goodman’s Field the leading man suddenly took ill, and Garrick offered to fill in for him. He did so well that the audience did not notice the substitution. However, Garrick found the acting of the time very stifled, rigid. It seemed more a place for speech thriving and straightforward declarations than a place of acting. This troubled Garrick, for he felt that the stage should hold a mirror up to nature, showing its complexities. He felt it was his calling to effect a revolution. Garrick continued to act with some of the players from Goodman’s Field and his confidence grew. He began to immerse himself in his parts, acting with emotion and feeling. His voice was strong and melodious, his body light and agile, and he had a commanding set of eyes. He soon became known as the new wonder. When Garrick acted the theater was always full; when he did not, it was half empty.

Through jealousies of the rival theaters Goodman’s Field was closed down by government decree and only two remained registered thaters were Convent Garden and Drury Lane. Garrick signed a contract with Dury Lane, which gained him a salary that far exceeded any previously granted to an actor. Eva Marie Viegel Nobles and titled people flocked to the theater to see this new wonder. Alexander Pope observed Garrick’s fresh and forceful style and commented, “That young man never had his equal as an actor, and he will never have a rival.” Mrs. Porter, a great actress of the time, prophetically stated after watching Garrick, “All hail, hereafter. He is born an actor, and does more at his first appearance than ever anybody did with twenty years’ practice…. What will he be in time!” Garrick eventually became the manager and owner of Drury Lane. He was an excellent money manager and began to be one of England. He established charities for which he would often give benefit performances, and cared for his brothers and sisters. Marriage Garrick married Eva Marie Viegel, one of the finest and most advanced dancers in the world. Their marriage was an everlasting courtship.

She soon retired from the stage to support her husband in his management of Drury Lane. Garrick did not make decisions without consulting Mrs. Garrick. Retiring The Farmer’s Return, the farmer played by David Garrick During Garrick’s twenty-nine years as manager, he produced seventy-five plays and revised twenty-four of Shakespeare’s dramas. At last he announced his retirement and or three months gave farewell performances to packed houses. Then he and his wife left for his famous tour of France. Their tour coincided with the important translation of Shakespeare by Letourneur. The combination of these two events cemented Shakespeare’s reputation in that country. Because of the great admiration France developed for Garrick, new conciliation grew between England and France. Death Upon his death, all of England mourned. Johnson wrote: “I am disappointed by that stroke of death which has eclipsed the gaiety of nations and impoverished the public.” Garrick’s social gifts, his quiet integrity, and his private virtues combined with his great talents to give the dramatic arts the dignity it had previously lacked. His body was taken to Westminster Abbey by members of the highest nobility and placed in the Poets’ Corner at the very foot of Shakespeare’s monument.

Samuel Johnson was observed “standing by his grace, at the foot of Shakespeare’s monument, and bather in tears.” Goldsmith eulogised him by writing: “Here lies David Garrick, describe me, who can, an abridgement of all that was pleasant in a man.” Copyright © Taken from the book: The Other Eminent Men of Wilford Woodruff. Special thanks to Vicki Jo Anderson. Please do not copy. 2 Notes: Anderson, Vicki Jo. (1994). The Other Eminent Men of Wilford Woodruff. Cottonwood, AZ: Zichron Historical Research Institute. ↩ Ibid. ↩ David Garrick DAVID GARRICK This article was originally published in Encyclopedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, Volume XI. Robert Caruthers & Adolphus William Ward. Cambridge: University Press, 1910. p. 475-77. GARRICK, DAVID (1717-1779), English actor and theatrical manager, was descended from a good French Protestant family named Garric or Garrique of Bordeaux, which had settled in England on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

His father, Captain Peter Garrick, who had married Arabella Clough, the daughter of a vicar choral of Lichfield cathedral, was on a recruiting expedition when his famous third son was born at Hereford on the 19th of February 1717. Captain Garrick, who had made his home at Lichfield, where he had a large family, in 1731 rejoined his regiment at Gibraltar. This kept him absent from home for many years, during which letters were written to him by "little Davy," acquainting him with the doings at Lichfield. When the boy was about eleven years old he paid a short visit to Lisbon where his uncle David had settled as a wine merchant. On his father's return from Gibraltar, David, who had previously been educated at the grammar school of Lichfield, was, largely by the advice of Gilbert Walmley, registrar of the exxlesiastical court, sent with his brother George to the "academy" at Edial, just opened in June or July 1736 by Samuel Johnson, the senior by seven years of David, who was then nineteen.

This seminary was, however, closed in about six months, and on the 2nd of March 1736/7 both Johnson and Garrick left Lichfield for London -- Johnson, as he afterwards said, "with twopence halfpenny in his pocket," and Garrick "with three-halfpence in his." Johnson, whose chief asset was the MS. tragedy of Irene, was at first the host of his former pupil, who, however, before the end of the year took up his residence at Rochester with John Colson (afterwards Lucasian professor at Cambridge). Captain Garrick died about a month after David's arrival in London. Soon afterwards, his uncle, the wine merchant in Lisbon, having left David a sum of £1000, he and his brother entered into partnership as wine merchants in London and Lichfield, David taking up the London business. The concern was not prosperous--though Samuel Foote's assertion that he had known Garrick with three quarts of vinegar in the cellar calling himself a wine merchant need not be taken literally--and before the end of 1741 he had spent nearly half of his capital.

His passion for the stage completely engrossed him; he tried his hand both at dramatic criticism and at dramatic authorship. His first dramatic piece, Lethe, or Aesop in the Shades, which he was thirty-seven years later to read from a splendidly bound transcript to King George III and Queen Charlotte, was played at Drury Lane on the 15th of April 1740; and he became a well-known frequenter of theatrical circles. His first appearance on the stage was made in March 1741, incognito, as Harlequin at Goodman's Fields, Yates, who was ill, having allowed him to take his place during a few scenes of the pantomime entitled Harlequin Student, or The Fall of Pantomime with the Restoration of the Drama. Garrick subsequently accompanied a party of players from the same theatre to Ipswich, where he played his first part as an actor under the name of Lyddal, in the character of Aboan (in Southerne's Oroonoko). His success in this and other parts determined his future career.

On the 19th of October 1741, he made his appearance at Goodman's Fields as Richard III and gained the most enthusiastic applause. Among the audience was Macklin, whose performance of Shylock, early in the same year, had pointed the way along which Garrick was so rapidly to pass in triumph. On the morrow the latter wrote to his brother at Lichfield, proposing to make arrangements for his withdrawel from the partnership, which, after much distressful complaint on the part of his family, met by him with the utmost consideration, were ultimately carried into effect. Meanwhile, each night had added to his popularity on the stage. The town, as Gray (who, like Horace Walpole, at first held out against the furore) declared, was "horn-mad" about him. Before his Richard had exhausted its original effect, he won new applause as Aboan, and soon afterwards as Lear and as Pierre in Otway's Venice Preserved, as well as in several comic characters (including that of Bayes).

Glover ("Leonidas") attended every performance; the duke of Argyll, Lords Cobham and Lyttelton, Pitt, and several other members of parliament testified their admiration. Within the first six months of his theatrical career he acted in eighteen characters of all kinds, and from the 2nd of December he appeared in his own name. Pope went to see him three times during his first performances, and pronounced that "that young man never had his equal as an actor, and he will never have a rival." Before next spring he had supped with "the great Mr. Murray, counsellor," and was engaged to do so with Mr. Pope through Murray's introduction, while he was dining with Halifax, Sandwich and Chesterfield. "There was a dozen dukes of a night at Goodman's Fields," writes Horace Walpole. Garrick's farce of The Lying Valet, in which he performed the part of Sharp, was at this time brought out with so much success that he ventured to send a copy to his brother.

His fortune was now made, and while the managers of Covent Garden and Drury Lane resorted to the law to make Giffard, the manager of Goodman's Fields, close his little theatre, Garrick was engaged by Fleetwood for Drury Lane for the season of 1742. In June of that year he went over to Dublin, where he found the same homage paid to his talents as he had received from his own countrymen. He was accompanied by Margaret (Peg) Woffington, of whom he had been for some time a fervent admirer. (His claim to the authorship of the song to Lovely Peggy is still sub judice. There remains some obscurity as to the end of their liaison.) From September 1742 to April 1745 he played at Drury Lane, after which he again went over to Dublin. Here he remained during the whole season, as joint-manager with Sheridan, in the direction and profits of the Theatre Royal in Smock Alley. In 1746-1747 he fulfilled a short engagement with Rich at Covent Garden, his last series of performances under a management not his own.

With the close of that season Fleetwood's patent for the management of Drury Lane expired, and Garrick, in conjunction with Lacy, purchased the property of the theatre, together with the renewal of the patent; contributing £8000 as two-thirds of the purchase money. In September 1747 it was opened with a strong company of actors, Johnson's prologue being spoken by Garrick, while the epilogue, written by him, was spoken by Mrs. Woffington. The negotiations involved Garrick in a bitter quarrel with Macklin, who appears to have had a real grievance in the matter. Garrick took no part himself till his performance of Archer in the Beaux' Stratagem, a month after the opening. For a time at least "the drama's patrons" were content with the higher entertainment furnished them; in the end Garrick had to "please" them, like most other managers, by gratifying their love of show. Garrick was surrounded by many players of eminence, and he had the art, as he was told by Mrs.

Clive , "of contradicting the proverb that one cannot make bricks without straw, by doing what is infinitely more difficult, making actors and actresses without genius." He had to encounter very serious opposition from the old actors whom he had distanced, and with the younger actors and actresses he was involved in frequent quarrels. But to none of them or their fellows did he, so far as it appears, show that jealousy of real merit from which so many great actors have been unable to remain free. For the present he was able to hold his own against all competition. The naturalness of his acting fascinated those who, like Partridge in Tom Jones, listened to nature's voice, and justified the preference of more conscious critics. To be "pleased with nature" was, as Churchill wrote, in the Rosciad (1761), to be pleased with Garrick. for the stately declamation, the sonorous, and beyond a doubt impressive, chant of Quin and his fellows, Garrick substituted rapid changes of passion and humour in both voice and gesture, which held his audiences spellbound.

"It seemed," wrote Richard Cumberland, "as if a whole century had been stepped over in the passage of a single scene; old things were done away, and a new order at once brought forward, bright and luminous, and clearly destined to dispel the barbarianisms of a tasteless age, too long superstitiously devoted to the illusions of imposing declamation." Garrick's French descent and his education may have contributed to give him the vivacity and versatility which distinguished him as an actor; and nature had given him an eye, if not a stature, to command, and a mimic power of wonderful variety. The list of his characters in tragedy, comedy and farce is large, and would be extraordinary for a modern actor of high rank; it includes not less than seventeen Shakespearian parts. As a manager, though he committed some grievous blunders, he did good service to the theatre and signally advanced the popularity of Shakespeare's plays, of which not less than twenty-four were produced at Drury Lane under his management. Many of these were not pure Shakespeare ; and he is credited with the addition of a dying speech to the text of Macbeth .

On the other hand, Tate Wilkinson says that Garrick's production of Hamlet in 1773 was well received at Drury Lane even by the galleries, "though without their favourite acquaintances of the gravediggers." Among his published adaptations are an opera, The Fairies (from Midsummer Night's Dream ) (1755); an opera The Tempest (1756); Catherine and Petruchio (1758); Florizel and Perdita (1762). But not every generation has the same notions of the way in which Shakespeare is best honoured. Few sins of omission can be charged against Garrick as a manager, but he refused Home's Douglas, and made the wrong choice between False Delicacy and The Good Natur'd Man. For the rest, he purified the stage of much of its grossness, and introduced a relative correctness of costume and decoration unknown before. To the study of English dramatic literature he rendered an important service by bequeathing his then unrivalled collection of plays to the British Museum. After escaping from his chains of passion for the beautiful but reckless Mrs.

Woffington, Garrick had in 1749 married Mademoiselle Violette (Eva Maria Veigel), a German lady who had attracted admiration at Florence or at Vienna as a dancer, and had come to England early in 1746, where her modest grace and the rumours which surrounded her created a furore, and where she found enthusiastic patrons in the earl and countess of Burlington. Garrick, who called her "the best of women and wives," lived most happily with her in his villa at Hampton, acquired by him in 1754, whither he was glad to escape from his house in Southampton Street. To thish period belongs Garrick's quarrel with Barry, the only actor who even temporarily rivalled him in the favour of the public. In 1763 Garrick and his wife visited Paris, where they were cordially received and made the acquaintance of Diderot and others at the house of the baron d'Holbach.

It was about this time that Grimm extolled Garrick as the first and only actor who came up to the demands of his imagination; and it was in a reply to a pamphlet occasioned by Garrick's visit that Diderot first gave expression to his views expounded in his Paradoxe sur le comédien. After some months spent in Italy, where Garrick fell seriously ill, they returned to Paris in the autumn of 1764 and made more friends, reaching London in April 1765. Their union was childless, and Mrs. Garrick survived her husband until 1822. Her portrait by Hogarth is at Windsor Castle. Garrick practically ceased to act in 1766, but he continued the management of Drury Lane, and in 1769 organized the Shakespeare celebrations at Stratford-on-Avon, an undertaking which ended in dismal failure, though he composed an "Ode upon dedicating a building and erecting a Statue to Shakespeare" on the occasion. Of his best supporters on the stage, Mrs. Cibber, with whom he had been reconciled, died in 1766, and Mrs.

(Kitty) Clive retired in 1769; but Garrick contrived to maintain the success of his theatre. He sold his share in the property in 1776 for £35,000, and took leave of the stage by playing a round of his favourite characters--Hamlet, Lear, Richard and Benedick, among Shakespearian parts; Lusignan in Zara, Aaron Hill's adaptation of Voltaire's Zaire; and Kitely in his own adaptation of Ben Jonson 's Every Man in his Humour; Archer in Farquhar 's Beaux Stratagem; Abel Drugger in Ben Jonson's Alchemist; Sir John Brute in Vanbrugh's Provoked Wife; Leon in Fletcher 's Rule a Wife and Have a Wife. He ended the series, as Tate Wilkinson says, "in full glory" with "the youthful Don Felix" in Mrs. Centlivre's Wonder on the 10th of June 1776. He died in London on the 20th of January 1779. He was buried at Westminster Abbey at the foot of Shakespeare's statue with imposing solemnities.

An elegy on his death was published by William Tasker, poet and physiognomist, in the same year. In person, Garrick was a little below middle height; in his later years he seems to have inclined to stoutness. The extraordinary mobility of his whole person, and his power of as it were transforming himself at will, are attested to by many anecdotes and descriptions, but the piercing power of his eye must have been his most irresistable feature. Johnson, of whose various and often merely churlish remarks on Garrick and his doings many are scattered through the pages of Boswell, spoke warmly of the elegance and sprightliness of his friend's conversation, as well as of his liberality and kindness of heart; while to the great actor's art he paid the exquisite tribute of describing Garrick's sudden death as having "eclipsed the gaiety of nations, and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure." But the most discriminating character of Garrick, slightly tinged with satire, is that drawn by Goldsmith in his poem of Retaliation.

Beyond a doubt he was not without a certain moral timidity contrasting strangely with his eager temperament and alertness of intellect; but, though he was not cast in a heroic mould, he must have been one of the most amiable of men. Garrick was often happy in his epigrams and occasional verse, including his numerous prologues and epilogues. He had the good taste to recognize, and the spirit to make public his recognition of, the excellence of Gray's odes at a time when they were either ridiculed or neglected. His dramatic pieces, The Lying Valet, adapted from Motteux's Novelty Lethe (1740), The Guardian, Linco's Travels (1767), Miss in her Teens (1747), Irish Widow, &c., and his alterations and adaptations of old plays, which together fill four volumes, evinced his knowledge of stage effect and his appreciation of lively dialogue and action; but he cannot be said to have added one new or original character to the drama. He was joint author with Colman of The Clandestine Marriage (1766), in which he is said to have written his famous part of Lord Ogleby.

The excellent farce, High Life below Stairs, appears to have been wrongly attributed to Garrick, and to be by James Townley. His Dramatic Works (1798) fill three, his Poetic (1735) two volumes. Garrick's Private Correspondence (published 1831-1832 with a short memoir by Boaden, in 2 vols. 4to), which includes his extensive Foreign Correspondence with distinguished French men and women, and the notices of him in the memoirs of Cumberland, Hannah More and Madame D'Arblay, and above all in Boswell's Life of Johnson, bear testimony to his many attractive qualities as a companion and to his fidelity as a friend.

Question: Give one year when the actor David Garrick was alive.
Answer: 1717 - 1779